2012 republican presidential nominee IV: NEEDS MORE BOOING

As as fat-free sugarless substitute for Beltway wit he's ok if you ignore his history about being wrong about everything in the last thirty years except Ross Perot and Afghanistan. The HuffPost among others this afternoon revived the notion that Will is the Smart, Adult Conservative thanks to this remark, without qualification. It's worth bringing up because it's as loony a notion as taking Santorum seriously.

I'm just saying that it's okay to credit him with being right about this one thing, and in a way that I thought was quite funny, without implying that you think he's a genius. He says stuff on TV. Sometimes he's good.

George Will says more than enough facepalmingly stupid things that I am no longer decieved by the fact that he employs a larger vocabulary and longer sentences than the average shill for Republican foolishness. He may have a fancy education, but he still talks shit most of the time.

If you find Will funny, as I do sometimes, I think that's part and parcel of why you find him funny--his snobbish and carefully calculated detachment from the world. I just don't see it as anything worth getting upset about.

by the way, if you think I'm mocking you for finding Will's remark funny, that's not at all my intention. He's made me laugh too. I used his remark as an excuse to write about how repugnant Will is generally.

If Frum truly believes that Limbaugh's three-day outburst was "the bottom of the barrel of shock talk", then either he has an exalted idea of human self- restraint or else no idea of the depths to which humans are willing to descend .

Chris Wallace on Fox showed Santorum the video clip of Obama making the case for all kinds of further education and training, not just 4 year colleges...

Santorum acknowledged that he might have made a mistake.

"Look, maybe I've read some comments where at least it was characterized that the president said we should go to four-year colleges," he said. "If I was in error, you said you haven't found that, I certainly read that… if it was an error, I agree with the president that we should have options for a variety of training."

Santorum's defensive answers to Wallace re Catholicism and birth control, and his lack of charity donations are uh, entertaining as well

It sure seems to me that events to date have been all about Mitt Romney wrapping up a very open nomination quickly and fairly easily. Not as easily as George W. Bush did in 2000 (when he had a much better record of endorsements). But to me, Romney's nomination is quite comparable to the nominations of Kerry in 2004, Dole in 1996, and Dukakis in 1988, and a lot more certain a lot earlier than that of McCain last time around. That seems to very much fit a model in which party actors compete and coordinate on nominations and voters in primaries and caucuses ratify it, rather than a model in which candidates compete in a weak party environment and voters in primaries and caucuses determine the nomination. Yes, there's been momentum and press effects and other stuff that has produced a few oddball primary and caucus results, but none of that has really, as far as I can see, done as much to shape the contest as has decisions by party actors. In particular, the party's apparent lack of interest in Rick Santorum, seen through a lack of high-profile endorsements after Iowa and again after Colorado and Minnesota, appear to have been far more predictive than Santorum's strong showing in those states.

No one believes -- and I certainly don't believe -- that a "party decides" view of the nomination process rules out stray candidates winning the occasional primary or caucus. What matters is the nomination. And it sure looks to me as if the nomination has been over for a long time, exactly as those of us who push this view would have expected given most indications of party actor support.

Romney's 2009 USA Today op-ed in which he encouraged Obama to pass something very much like the individual mandate that he now disowns:

Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar.

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist said Monday that Mitt Romney made a "mistake" in advocating the individual mandate as part of the president's healthcare reform law, but that he was encouraged that the Republican front-runner had shifted "in favor of liberty" and now opposes the requirement.

In more mundane news Romney filed for an extension on doing his taxes, and there is older video of Romney saying poor Moms should experience the dignity of work (outside the home) if they want to get government benefits